Free The Old Magic by James Mallory

hair.
    The third of the three faces turned toward the right: Melusine, the Mother. It was the face of an older woman, her features
     marked with lines of both joy and pain. The Mother’s hair was braided and coiled upon her head, and held in place with jewelled
     hairpins depicting the moon and the stars.
    Carved into the stone above the center face, Merlin could see the crescent moon and triple spiral that marked a shrine of
     the Old Ways—Ambrosia had told him how to recognize such places, though she’d told him little else about the Old Ways. From
     what people had said in his hearing, Merlin had gotten the idea that all the shrines to the Old Ways had been smashed, either
     by Constant or by Vortigern. But if that were true, they seemed to have missed this one.
    Nobody knows this place is here but me.
Delighted with his secret knowledge, Merlin flopped onto his belly and gazed down into the pool.
    The Warrior aspect of the Queen of the Old Ways disturbed him obliquely, and the Mother-self reminded him of his Aunt Ambrosia.
     But the Maiden, her eyes downcast and a secret smile upon her face, seemed to him in that moment to be all that Merlin had
     dreamed of in his unfocused dreams. Gazing at her, all the vague longing he had felt for so long crystallized with a sharpness
     that bordered on pain.
    Come to me,
he thought to the beautiful image.
I’m all alone. Aunt Ambrosia has her work, and Blaise has his god, but what is there for me? You are all there is of love;
     I can see it. Come to me, come to me—I need you. …
    But the Power he called to with all the passion of an untutored young wizard had long since lost the ability to love that
     filled young Merlin’s heart. Ages ago the Queen of the Old Ways had lost that gentle loving part of herself—Time and War had
     cut away her maiden and mother selves, leaving behind only the warrior, Mab-Morrigan of the Ravens. She could not hear the
     cry of a young lover’s heart any longer, let alone respond to it.
    But such a call could not go unanswered. Somewhere in all the world, there must be someone to hear. Merlin gazed into the
     water, and saw the reflection of his face shimmering over the Lady’s own, giving the carven features the illusion of warm-blooded
     life. But when he reached out his hand to touch her face, the ripples his fingers made as they brushed the surface of the
     water shattered the image into a thousand bright dancing rings. …
    The candle flame cast bright rings of light on the mellow stone walls of the abbey. The sound of the bells tolling for evensong
     drifted in through her window, and Nimue wondered what life would be like when she could no longer hear them each evening.
     Would church bells ring in the shadow of her father’s castle? Or would she join her father at King Vortigern’s Pagan court
     and never hear the church bells again?
    Nimue could not suppress a small shudder. Vortigern had been the bogeyman of her childhood, the threat that had commanded
     her obedience. Her family had always been loyal to King Constant, but things had grown so bad in the last years of the mad
     old king’s rein that Ardent had welcomed the new usurper even as he helped to smuggle Uther and Lionors, King Constant’s family,
     to safety in Normandy.
    But Vortigern had swiftly proved to be as bad a king as Constant, and so Ardent had sent his only child to the holy sisters
     of Avalon for safekeeping. Nimue had grown from gawky child to poised young woman safely behind the walls of Avalon, isolated
     from the troubles of the world.
    But not unaware of them. Each messenger from her father had brought fresh—and often disturbing—news from outside. Vortigern
     trusted no one, and kept his barons close about him at his court rather than leaving them at liberty upon their own lands
     as Constant had. He had abandoned Constant’s royal city at Londinium to begin building an enormous city in the western hills,
     a city that would be dominated by a